A year ago: 'Banjo Fred' Starner

"Banjo Fred" Starner was an economics professor and folk singer who documented hobo music and culture.

He often explained that hobos weren’t bums but "people who rode the rails for a year or two to get their act together, then went back to rejoin the rest of the world."

Starner died a year ago at age 72.

"Fred Starner was very much a musician of the people," said Mary Katherine Aldin, a folk-music historian. Here's a video from a performance in 2008.

In his "Hobo's Lullaby," Starner sang:

A hobo is life at its core
Happiness is not making more
and more.

Starner's obituary appeared in The Times on Nov. 11, 2009.

-- Keith Thursby

Photo: Fred Starner in 1993. Credit: Scott Rathurn /For the Los Angeles Times